Wednesday, November 19, 2014

DISCOVERING THE INCOGNITO, TOMB OF GAUS MOHAMMAD - by Nupur Agarwal

Exploring the significance and expression of lattice , form and planning of tomb of Mohammad gaus and finding out reasons - how do we get decorative to cosmological .

THE LEGACY OF MOHAMMAD GAUS

The mausoleum of Mohammad gaus locally known as “ tansen ka maqbara ”is reffered to be the world famous architecture from history .The huge scale of mausoleum testifies to sustained building work that Akbar was able to contemplate over a period of 38 years . The mmausoleumbuilt is paid as a homage to the sufi saint Mohammad gaus by the Mughal Emperor Akbar .

THE MAGNIFICENT TOMB ARCHITECTURE

The architecture of mausoleum displays great variety both structural and aesthetic ,developing gradually and coherently out of earlier tradition and experience .its paramount virtues are several “a marked feeling for form and scale ” structural inventiveness specially in dome construction ;a genius for decoration and lattice work ,with a hidden mystery and awe not rivaled in any other architecture .

ORNAMENTATION OF THE TOMB

The sandstone laid in uninterruptedly expanding patterns created from interlocking heagons , contained in arched frames ,geometric patterns are developed into design based on triangles ,si pointed stars and pentagons .Mathematically determined ,elegantly interwoven lattices are another instances of mystical design used in the tomb .

ARCHITECTURE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TOMB

The architecture of Mohammad gaus tomb is any next annex to the built heritage in mughal era .The tomb complex is noteworthy for the following basic feature -

The use of the char-bagh (a paradisal garden), which in Urdu means “four gardens,” the four quarters into which the square that stands before the tomb is subdivided. The char-bagh is said to be heavily influenced by the Persian style. In the Hindu interpretation of Mount Meru, rivers flow in all four cardinal directions from a “cosmic cross.” Similar is the Mughal view of the matter:

The char-bagh is seen as a manifestation of the four rivers that flow through Paradise. The most original feature of the mohammad gaus tomb in terms of its planning was to move the mausoleum back from the center of the char-bagh to furthest edge to symbolize a sence of scale and grandeur .

The second feature is the complex use of the nine-fold hasht-bihist’s plan. “Hasht-bihist” means literally “eight paradises” (in Urdu). The overall plan of the tomb of gaus is a square with four chamfered corners, which create the eight sides of an irregular octagon.

“Approach through the courtyard and garden is carefully orchestrated with more subtlety than at any other of the monuments. The location of the structure at the end of the garden means that it occupies the highly visible spot which dominates the skyline . . . ”

pyramid, the simplest of the polyhedral, has been historically prized, but in the Islamic World it has has been regarded as attracting ill fortune, in contrast to the hemisphere, which forms the dome of mosques, and the semicircle, a common form of their arches and decoration.“The square, belongs to the construction of buildings and to the subdivision of the land for agricultural purposes.”

The pentagon, he interpreted its five corners, reading them clockwise, as corresponding to the five public prayers of the Islamic world: (1) at dawn (fajar), (2) at mid-day (zohar), (3) at the start of the sun’s descent (asur), (4) at sunset (maghrib), and (5) before one goes to sleep (isha). Thus it symbolizes the whole day, which one should spend according to God’s wishes.

Three gives rise to six, and six has a vital role in Islamic cosmology as it does in the other two Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity; and this role relates to the number of days in which God created the world. The Abrahamic wisdom insists that we regard the inner and outer meaning of the cosmogony, its symbolic and literal dimensions. The six-pointed star is a symbol of perfection in all three religions.

it uses “infinity design,” whereby the repeated pattern continues beyond the frame that generates it and so indicates the infinite cosmos. “None of the lines in this design,” he observed, “are broken. The design is conceived as a circle (the cosmos) within a square (a more basic mold).”